Government Printing Office type faces [electronic resource]

Baskerville

The introduction of new types as well as typesetting systems was always controversial and contributed to volatility in the typographic and printing trade unions. Although typecasting machines arrived in the Wellington newspaper industry in 1897/98, the GPO waited until 1903 to add two each of the new linotype and monotype machines, the latter being imported into New Zealand for the first time. By the 1960s, hot metal casting was slowly being replaced by phototypesetting or cold type, and later computer typesetting. Managed change occurred throughout the mid-1970s and the last hot metal machines stopped production in the late 1980s. This specimen booklet of Baskerville was set in Monophoto and printed offset. Monophoto machines were an adaptation of the hot metal machine so it could output directly to photographic film; sometimes they used the original Monotype keyboard and paper tape.

Further reading:

• Peter Franks, Print & Politics. A History of the Trade Unions in the New Zealand Printing Industry, 1865-1995. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2001.
• "The Monotype Chronicles" at URL: http://www.agfamonotype.co.uk/DynamicPage/View.cfm?PageName=tl_1960_70